Fireproof

Last night we saw "Fireproof", the movie about a firefighter whose wife wants to divorce him, starring Kirk Cameron. I must say Cameron's acting really shone. I was glued to him the whole time.

Unfortunately, part of the reason his acting stood out so well is that he carried the entire movie by himself. With a couple of exceptions, the supporting cast were terrible. The actor who played Cameron's father was so bad I think he wasn't an actor at all, but someone associated with the film who wanted to be in it and got his way. Even the actress who played his wife came across like the star of a high school play for the first half of the film, flipping her hair and smiling as she delivered her lines. She did get better as the movie went on, however, and her scenes with Cameron towards the end of the film were the best.

You could tell this was a low-budget film, but they did a good job with what they had, and there was one big fire scene where I found myself thinking "This is it... this is where they spent their budget, right here." The nice thing about a low-budget film is that you get to enjoy the story without all the special effects and dialogue-drowning music. The contemporary Christian music in the soundtrack was excellent... I'm going to be looking on YouTube for the videos.

The other thing that surprised me was the script. Despite the fact that some of the supporting cast delivered their lines as if they were Girl Scout Cookies, the script was really good. As a writer, it hurt to hear some of these lines fall flat when they could have easily sparkled. I'm sure that's every screenwriter's nightmare... to have a really good script, and finally get it made into a movie, but it's a bad movie.

Overall, this wasn't a bad movie. I'm glad we went. And it was free; they showed it at church. You can't beat free! I would just love to see Cameron do something big... do a big, secular, blockbuster movie and get some of the fame and credit he deserves. Then perhaps he could use the money to make his own low-budget films, and do them right!